By Graeme Esson BBC News Online Scotland

Dumping in landfill sites is often cheaper than recycling

New laws on electronic waste will make producers responsible for dealing with equipment when it reaches the end of its useful life.

Green campaigners say more must be done to prepare for the European directive.

But the Scottish Environment Protection Agency said it was confident that fears of further stockpiles were unfounded.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Weee) Directive will become law in the UK in August next year.

It will force businesses to meet the costs of collecting, treating and recycling waste products ranging from large pieces of electronic equipment through to battery-operated toys.

Speeded up

Sepa is currently carrying out consultation on the proposed guidance which will be issued.

The Scottish Green Party has warned that the process must be speeded up to avoid creating a new mountain of televisions and computers.

MSP Robin Harper said: "The new directive will find Scotland as unprepared as usual unless we do a lot more."

We are hoping that this time they will make sure the infrastructure is in place before the legislation is in place Dr Dan Barlow Friends of the Earth Scotland

Dr Dan Barlow, head of research at Friends of the Earth Scotland, also fears a repeat of the problems which followed the introduction of regulations covering the disposal of fridges.

"We were not ready for that legislation because we had not thought through fully how it was going to be implemented," he said.

"We are hoping that this time they will make sure the infrastructure is in place before the legislation is in place.

"Otherwise we will end up with the same situation where large mountains are being compiled."

However, Nathaniel Chalamanda - a policy development officer within Sepa's producer responsibility unit - said people should not be concerned.

Market share

Under the Weee Directive a national clearing house will be created, he explained.

It will gather information on all the producers of electronic waste, looking at their market share and the amount they produce in each category.

That will be used to calculate their obligations under the directive.

Recycling companies will register with the clearing house, and they and any other sites collecting electrical waste will have to meet certain standards.

Fears of a new fridge mountain have been dismissed

Once they have collected a full load they will contact the clearing house, which will inform one of the producers in that category that it is responsible for moving the waste.

That company will either have to pick up the waste itself, employ a contractor or get a recycling company to handle the load.

"We won't see any Weee being piled up in a central collection point," stressed Mr Chalamanda.

"This system will control and ensure that there is no backlog which will end up building these massive mountains."

A report prepared for Sepa last year estimated that 103,000 tonnes of Weee were produced in Scotland in 2001/2002.

The largest quantities came from Scotland's biggest cities.

More expensive

Almost 90% of the recovery companies surveyed said they were operating below full capacity, and six in 10 were operating at below 50% capacity.

The report said the biggest barrier to recycling was that it was more expensive than dumping the waste in landfill sites.

The Weee directive will remove this barrier - but the report said other issues also existed.

These included industry's reluctance to used recycled material to manufacture new products and the low price or lack of markets for certain recycled material.

People are sitting down and talking to each other Nathaniel Chalamanda Sepa

Mr Chalamanda said it was recognised that there was a gap between the amount of waste being produced in Scotland and the capacity for recycling.

"Nothing like this has ever been done before because there was no requirement to look at the overall infrastructure," he said.

"We just left it to the market forces to take care of it.

"Now that the regulations are coming in we thought let's start looking to find out exactly what is happening in Scotland."

He said the work already done had helped to raise awareness within the industry.

"People are sitting down and talking to each other," he added.

Throwaway society

Dr Barlow said he hoped that the new regulations would put the onus on producers to consider how easy it is for their goods to be reused rather than recycled.

"We do live in what is called a throwaway society," he said.

It was often easier to dispose of something and buy a new one than to fix the old one.